In fair Verona where we lay our scene…or maybe we should say “where we laid our scene for the past three days”. I have no clue how (if?) Shakespeare ever visited Verona before using it as the setting for Romeo and Juliet but damn did he have it right! If we enjoyed Rome and were awed by Venice then we freakin’ LOVED our stay in this little city. Upon our arrival we decided to simply walk to the town center when all of the busses had “corso deviante” – we assumed this meant they were operating on a different schedule. We ended up walking into the final day of Giro d’Italia – the Italian version of the Tour de France and it was crazy! The main color for this is pink – the color of the jersey the leader wears – so the streets were lined with pink clad admirers and fans, tons of street vendors and a whole section roped off for food and drinks. We had to laugh when we realized that Speed Street was occurring in Charlotte over the same weekend… Adam, by the way, appeared to have known something beforehand (though he maintains he knew nothing!) because he blended in perfectly with his choice of wearing a pink polo shirt…hmm…suspicious… We made our way over to our hotel – a stones throw away from the main attraction in Verona: The Arena. This is a small scale version of Il Colosseo but without the crowds (well, after the Giro was over it was) and it is still used for big events and shows – Rod Stewart to the Opera? – the Italians have a saying, ‘non ci sono i gusti’… which basically means there’s no accounting for taste. After hastily dropping our luggage off we headed back out to catch the end of the race. The fans were absolutely insane, every time one biker finished there were hoards of Italians struggling around him hoping to get an autograph. Think Nascar but with everyone wearing pink, no tattoos, no beercans…or beer guts, I might add.
And….Adam is stepping in to give Mandy a short reprieve from blogging. I would like to elaborate some on the Hotel Milano that Mandy breezed over earlier. For starters we found it very odd that so many of the hotels in Verona were simply “Hotel” + “any geographic location that wasn’t Verona”. Secondly, this hotel was a little treat before a string of smaller B&B’s with European bathrooms – having just completed a renovation it was super nice and so pleasant having a full sized bathroom and functional shower. After a quick nap and freshening up we headed out to explore Verona with no plans or reservations to meet. The river that flows rushes around the city is gorgeous and amazingly relaxing due to all of the greenery and river sounds. The northern part of the city provides views of the mountains and an old castle on the hill side. Deciding that I didn’t want to get a lobster forehead we cut back into the city at Ponte Pietro for a round of Spritz (I’m already trying to figure out if Aperol is sold in the US).
Our second day in Verona (this is Mandy again, Adam is dutifully figuring out the Laundromat…) Adam had to work for a bit so I went out exploring on my own – Verona incidentally is full of shops – but I went around snapping pictures instead (be very proud). My theme for that day ended up being lampposts. Don’t ask why, but that day every one of them in Verona looked beautiful so I attempted to capture all of them in their unique glory. We grabbed lunch together overlooking the river and hillside and later, to work off the many gelato, pizza, and pasta calories (incidentally my new favorite is Riso – rice pudding gelato) we climbed up to Castel San Pietro and caught some amazing views of the city. We also checked out the Castel Vecchio which has a very cool bridge crossing the river. For dinner that night we decided to get over our tourist-phobia (temporarily) and got dinner right on the Piazza del Erbe – which ended up being pretty good for what it was.
Our last day in Verona was not spent in Verona – instead we day tripped up to Lago di Garda – a beautiful gigantic lake (Italy’s largest) about 45 minutes north of Verona. Well, 45 minutes by car, we took public bus so it took about 2 hours. This was such a great decision (thanks to Adam who insisted!) we had a wonderful time exploring the little lake town of Malcesine which is complete with its own castle. We hiked up to the castle, explored little alleyways and had lunch sitting by the lake. Then we decided to each do our own thing for about an hour – I really wanted to lay out on the pebbly “beach” (piles of rocks at various places) and catch some sun, and Adam wanted to “go north” and explore more of the lake. We met back up at the appointed time and decided to test out the waters, which were freezing. Basically the water is comprised of mountain springs, snow melt and, I’m positive, a giant freezer somewhere underneath it all. This was so cold both of our legs had shooting pains within seconds of entering. We stuck it out long enough to feel the hurt and get a few pictures. Oh, so I’m sure everyone knows or, if you don’t, it won’t surprise you to know that I love love love animals. So much to my delight (Adam’s too, I’m sure) as we were getting a picture of ourselves freezing in the lake a huge swan flew right by us! On our bus ride back I was determined to snap a picture of at least one swan. I had my camera out for a good 10 minutes before I sadly decided to put it up. Right at that moment I saw two swans, with little swanlings (anyone know the right word for baby swan?). That pattern of hopeful camera holding, putting it away, and seeing swans immediately after continued the entire way down the lake. Darn it! It was still pretty awesome and I have decided to rename Lake Garda as Swan Lake. The Italian Government has yet to answer my request.
Our last dinner was quite an adventure in food…apparently Verona has a specialty dish of Musso. I’m torn between letting you all guess what it is or just telling you. Hmm…has anyone guessed yet? Well, it’s not Moose (that’d be way too normal) and it’s not chocolate pudding (that’s Mousse folks) it is…drumroll….DONKEY. Straight up Donkey. Gross right? Well, you would think so but, in ravioli form with a delicious cream sauce and topped with truffles it is actually damn delicious. Go figure! I had to resist all of my mental images of Donkey from Shrek and had to resist making the donkey noise (heehaw!) from the time we ordered until…just about now! Adam ordered a steak dish and we had vino della casa rosso. Yum! Another great dinner at the end of our stay. We’re on a roll!
Update: We are having internet difficulties at our current B&B so this post only contains 1 picture. Know that we will add pictures to both the blog and our online photo album as soon as possible!
2 Comments
Here is what I learned from the internets……I think swanlings is much better than cygent???? ( Sounds like a mutant of some sort)
Young or baby swans are called a cygent.
Male swan – Cob
Female swan – Pen
Young swan – Cygent
As a group – Flock
And if you are curious as to what you ate….check this out……Typically a baby donkey is called a foal, for both male and female. A foal is usually under 1 year old.
The word colt is used to describe a young male horse. Young male donkeys can either be referred to as a ‘baby jack’ or a male foal. A young female donkey can be referred to as a ‘baby jenny (or jennet)’ or a female foal.
You Mr. Lee should have gone all the way in the water but then, that’s easy for me to say……..could have called this blog, musso , cygents and the color pink……
Glad Verona was so cool—-it sounds frikkin awesome! And how is Adams shoe crisis at this point?
Love, Me
Omigosh – just speant the last hour catching up on your excursions. Sounds like such a great time – so jealous. I love that you guys are like “locals”, laundromat and everything. I hope you are still having such a good time! We miss you back home. PS – you should only be lucky you weren’t here race weekend. Worked the whole weekend at teh race – crazy!